Jon Balserak, PhD
Visiting Lecturer
History (Early Modern Europe, religious, intellectual)
Contact
Building & Room:
UH 916
Address:
601 S. Morgan St.
Email:
About
Jon Balserak was at University of Bristol from 2008 to 2023 and before that University of Birmingham from 2002 to 2008. He received his PhD from University of Edinburgh in 2002 and has been a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society since 2016.
Balserak’s research interests focus on the Renaissance and Early Modern period, especially: the Reformations in France and Geneva, John Calvin, Theodore Beza, and Calvinism, dissimulation and lying, the history of prophecy, Vetus Latina (Old Latin), and Medieval and Early Modern interpretation of the Bible.
Teaching (current and recent)
HIST 211: The Dawn of European Modernity, 1500-1715
HIST 100: Western Civilization to 1648
HIST 101: Western Civilization since 1648
Selected Publications
Authored Books
2024 Geneva’s Use of Lies, Deceit, and Subterfuge, 1536-1563; Telling the Old, Old Story in Reformation France (Oxford Studies in HistoricalTheology series) Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
2017 Calvinism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press –2nd edition forthcoming in 2025.
2014 John Calvin as Sixteenth-Century Prophet. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2011 Establishing the Remnant Church in France; Calvin’s Lectures on the Minor Prophets, 1556-1559. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
2006 Divinity Compromised; A Study of Divine Accommodation in the Thought of John Calvin. Dordrecht: Springer.
Edited books, Critical Editions
2021 Brill’s Companion to the Reformation in Geneva. Ed. Jon Balserak. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
2017 Zwingli to Amyraut: Exploring the Growth of European Reformed Traditions. Eds Jon Balserak and Jim West. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
2015 Learning from the Past: Essays on Reception, Catholicity, and Dialogue in Honour of Anthony N. S. Lane. Eds Jon Balserak and Richard Snoddy. London: Bloomsbury / T & T Clark.
2011 Critical Edition of the Vetus Latina Iohannes. Vetus Latina. Die Reste der Altlateinischen Bibel nach Petrus Sabatier neugesammelt und herausgegeben von der Erzabtei Beuron. Eds. J. Balserak, P.H. Burton, H.A.G. Houghton, D.C.Parker. Beuron: Vetus Latina-Institut.
2006 Calvinus Evangelii Propugnator. Eds J. Balserak, A.N.S. Lane, D.F. Wright. Grand Rapids: Calvin Studies Society.
Refereed Journal Articles, Book Chapters, Encyclopedia entries
2022 “Calvin, Jean.” In: The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 4th edition. Ed. Andrew Louth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2022 “Calvinism.” In: The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 4th edition. Ed. Andrew Louth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2019 “Geneva’s Use of Lies, Deceit, and Simulation in their Efforts to Reform France, 1536-1563” in Harvard Theological Review 112/1, 76-100.
2017 “The Renaissance Impulses that drove Theodore Bibliander to Publish Machumetis Saracenorum” in The Muslim World; special issue: Islam and the Protestant Reformation 107/4 (Oct), 684-697.